The Militarization of the University of Hawai'i continues

Post Date November 16, 2008

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Uncategorized

Homeland security center opens on campus

By: Kris DeRego

Posted: 10/16/08

As funding for higher education continues to fall, the University of Hawai’i hopes that a recently launched Department of Homeland Security research center will bolster the college’s bottom line.

The National Center for Island, Maritime and Extreme Environment Security, which officially opened on Oct. 7, is one of five “centers of excellence” created by DHS to study border security, explosives detection, port security and emergency management. UH Mānoa was one of 11 universities selected in February to host a portion of one of the research centers.

“Investments in long-term, basic research are vital for the future of homeland security,” said DHS Undersecretary for Science and Technology Jay M. Cohen, who was present at the institute’s opening ceremony. “These colleges and universities will provide scientific expertise, high-quality resources and independent thought, all of which are valuable to securing America.”

Under an agreement reached between the DHS and university officials, UH Mānoa is eligible to receive a grant of up to $2 million per year over the next four to six years, for a potential windfall of $12 million.

In partnership with scientists at the University of Alaska, the University of Puerto Rico and New Jersey’s National Center for Secure and Resilient Maritime Commerce and Coastal Environments, the homeland security center’s researchers will consider ways to safeguard infrastructure located in island and extreme environmental conditions against natural and man-made emergencies, according to research director Roy Wilkens.

“The basic scientific investigations that the National Center for Island, Maritime and Extreme Environment Security will be performing are a natural complement to existing earth science and engineering programs at UH Mānoa,” Wilkens said. “These studies will eventually provide critical data to first responders in times of emergency and enhance our general understanding of the ocean and atmospheric environment around the Hawaiian Islands, Puerto Rico and Alaska.”

Six faculty members from UH’s Department of Engineering and School of Ocean and Earth Science Technology will spearhead the center’s initial research, which Wilkens says will benefit both the university and the state.

“Our observational expertise will save lives and help protect the environment,” Wilkens said. “As for UH, without the prospect of involvement in high-level science, UH would lose its best and brightest, both students and faculty.”

Defense research expanding

Homeland security contracts were not the only lucrative defense-related grants given to UH researchers in recent weeks. On Sept. 24, two weeks before the opening of the homeland security research center, UH’s Applied Research Laboratory was awarded an $850,000 task order by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the Wai’anae Ordnance Reef Remedial Investigation Project.

Approved by the Naval Sea Systems Command, the order instructs scientists to examine the impact of seasonal variations in water quality and sediment composition upon the threat posed by discarded World War II munitions off the O’ahu’s Wai’anae Coast. The survey will be conducted over the course of a one-year period to rectify possible data gaps in a 2006 study performed by the Department of Defense and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“It is important that we examine the impacts from the discarded military munitions at Ordnance Reef to determine the most appropriate course of action,” said U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye in a written release. “I have no doubt that the UH lab will undertake its tasks with professionalism and with environmental and cultural sensitivity.”

The study will involve both private and community partnerships, said UH Vice President for Research Jim Gaines, and could generate funding for similar projects in the future.

“The Army Corps of Engineers is committed to understanding the problems created by discarded munitions and potential impacts on the health of the people of Hawai’i,” Gaines said. “This project could lead to more clean-up operations of the discarded munitions by local businesses, which would have its own positive effect on the economy.”

Researchers for the Applied Research Laboratory, a Navy-sponsored science and technology laboratory, will complete additional sampling, biotic-substance testing and risk-assessment analysis as part of their review.

Critics unconvinced

While the National Center for Island, Maritime and Extreme Environment Security and Applied Research Laboratory enjoy broad support among university administrators, many members of the UH community remain opposed to the two research centers, arguing that prospective financial gains are outweighed by the threat posed to core educational values.

“The National Center for Island, Maritime and Extreme Environment Security and Applied Research Laboratory are increasing and intensifying the militarization of UH,” said Kyle Kajihiro, program director for the American Friends Service Committee. “This is part of a trend nationwide, in which universities are becoming agents of the military-industrial complex, instead of independent institutions dedicated to expanding and sharing knowledge.”

Michael D’Andrea, a professor of counselor education at UH Mānoa, agrees, noting that both the Mānoa Faculty Senate and the Associated Students of the University of Hawai’i passed resolutions condemning the expansion of military research on campus.

“This type of research not only undermines education at the university,” D’Andrea said, “but also the democratic principles that govern our society.”

Of particular concern to opponents of the research centers is the execution of classified weapons research at UH, which Kajihiro believes is being hidden from public purview.

“The ocean ordnance research task order is chum to lure the public into biting the Applied Research Laboratory hook,” Kajihiro said. “It masks the true purpose of the ARL, which is the development of weapons systems for missile defense, sensor integration, anti-submarine warfare, high energy lasers and other weapons technologies to be tested at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kaua’i.”

University officials maintain that classified weapons research is not the primary focus of either project.

“Once we get involved in classified areas, the free exchange of knowledge and information is inhibited, exactly the opposite of our mission,” Wilkens said.

Activists like Kajihiro are unmoved by the university’s reassurances, however, citing contractual loopholes as reasons for continuing their challenge.

“Remember that the Applied Research Laboratory’s voluntary no-classified research clause only applies to the first three years of operation,” Kajihiro said. “Do not let these institutions become Trojan horses for the expansion of secret research at UH. Do not let these invasive species dig their roots deep into UH.”

Source: http://www.kaleo.org/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=00e235cc-dc3f-41d5-8c27-8a6d36fe4268

Call to Stop the Bombing of Pohakuloa

Post Date November 14, 2008

Comments 1 Comment

Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Uncategorized

Jim Albertini of Malu ‘Aina issued the following statement calling on the military to honor the Hawai’i County Council resolution for a moratorium on live fire training at Pohakuloa, a site contaminated with depleted uranium.

A CITIZEN CALL TO ACTION

The military officially confirmed radiation contamination from weapons training at The Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA) on Aug. 20, 2007 . The full extent of the contamination is not known but the military has refused to halt all live-fire until an assessment of the problem has been completed. PTA is located in the center of Moku O Keawe (Hawaii Island) and covers over l33,000-acres. For more than 50 years this sacred area between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea has been used for a wide range of live-fire target practice, from small arms to B-52 and B-2 bombing missions. Up to l4 million live-rounds are fired annually

On July 2, 2008 the Hawaii County Council passed Resolution 639-08 by a vote of 8-l that requests the military with urgency, to address the potential hazards of radiation at PTA with the following eight-point plan:
l. Order a complete halt to B-2 bombing missions and to all live firing exercises and other activities at the Pohakuloa Training Area that create dust until there is an assessment and clean up of the depleted uranium already present;
2. Establish a permanent, high-tech monitoring system with procedures to ensure air quality control;
3. Establish a citizen monitoring system to work closely with Military experts to assure transparency and community confidence;
4. Host quarterly meetings to update and inform the public;
5. Ensure permanent funds are available for the monitoring program;
6. Provide a liaison to the County of Hawaii to facilitate communication between the U.S. Military and the County of Hawaii;
7. Provide semi-annual reports to the Hawaii County Council summarizing depleted uranium monitoring, detection, and mitigation efforts; and
8. The U.S. Military shall conduct a search of all records for firing of Depleted Uranium at the Pohakuloa training Area and all other Hawaii State military sites and release pertinent information to the public…

To date, more than 4 months since this resolution has been passed, there has been NO action by the military to address any of the above 8 points. In fact it is quite insulting to hear military officers who are charged with protecting community health and safety comment that the county council’s call to action “is only a resolution,” and that stopping live-fire at PTA “is not going to happen.” This tells us that our community health and safety is secondary to military training. So who and what is the military defending?

If the military truly cared about community health and safety it would operate on the precautionary principle and halt all live-fire until the full extent of contamination was known. We suspect a lot more than one radiation weapon system called the Davy Crockett was used at PTA. The military has a major conflict of interest as investigator of the problem. It wants to continue live-fire. It does not want to risk finding additional radiation problems that may force shutting down the base.. That’s why we need independent testing and citizen involvement at all levels to assure transparency and community confidence. What appears to be happening is military stonewalling.

Stop the Bombing of Hawaii Island

1. Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject war as a solution. 3. Defend civil liberties. 4. Oppose all discrimination: anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, etc. 5. Seek peace through justice in Hawai`i and around the world.
Contact: Malu `Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box AB Ola`a (Kurtistown),
Hawai`i 96760. Phone (808) 966-7622 Email ja@interpac.net http://www.malu-aina.org
Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet (Nov. l4, 2008 – 374th week) – Friday 3:30-5PM downtown Post Office
—
Jim Albertini
Malu ‘Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action
P.O.Box AB
Kurtistown, Hawai’i 96760
phone: 808-966-7622
email: JA@interpac.net
Visit us on the web at: www.malu-ania.org

Women Building Genuine Security

Post Date November 14, 2008

Comments 1 Comment

Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Global Justice and Peace Movements

This is an excellent description of the International Women’s Network Against Militarism by Gwyn Kirk, one of the founding members.

http://www.feministafrica.org/uploads/File/Issue%2010/profile.pdf

Building Genuine Security: The International Women’s Network Against Militarism

Gwyn Kirk

We are very pleased to have the following description of our Network included in this issue of Feminist Africa because of our concern about the implementation of AFRICOM. We are especially alarmed because Network members have observed and experienced first-hand similar developments and their impacts in Asia, the Pacific, and the US. We also want our African sisters, who face the possibility of new, and perhaps long-term, US military presence on the continent, to know we stand in solidarity with you.

Currently, worldwide, the US military maintains over 700 bases and installations, with facilities and operations on every continent. In addition, there are numerous secret sites, such as those in Israel, or other sites not yet considered official, such as newly established bases in Iraq. The most recent effort at military expansion, the proposed development of AFRICOM or the US Africa Command, is the newest of six regional structures designed to cover particular geographic areas. The other five are the Pacific, Middle East, Europe, South American, and North American commands, each led by a commanding officer responsible for the entire region. The goal is to maintain an integrated network of personnel, equipment, and weapons that can respond at a moment’s notice “to protect US interests,” that is, the interests of capital and ruling elites.

About Us

This Network started in 1997 when 40 women activists, policy-makers, researchers, teachers, and university students from South Korea, Okinawa, mainland Japan, the Philippines and the United States gathered to share information and to strategize about the negative effects of US military operations in all our countries. These included military violence against women and girls, the plight of mixed-race Amerasian children abandoned by US military fathers, environmental contamination, and the distortion of local economies. More recently, women from Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Guam have joined. We have developed a common analysis and understanding of how the US military, directly and indirectly, destroys lives, jeopardizes the physical environment, undermines local economies and cultures, and destroys opportunities to live in sustainable ways. We focus on military institutions, as well as military values, policies, and operations, and their impacts on our communities, especially on women.

The work of the network is significant in several key ways. First, it has brought together women across national, regional, class, race, and linguisticboundaries in a sustained way. Although some of us have met each other at activist and academic conferences, international gatherings such as Beijing Women’s Conference (1995), Hague Appeal for Peace (1999), Tokyo Women’s Military Tribunal (2000), and the World Social Forum (2004), the Network has provided a loose organizational structure and has combined resources to enable participants to meet regularly to exchange information, strategize together, to identify research needs, and to get to know each other personally and politically.

Another importance of the Network is our developing understanding of what is involved in transnational feminist praxis. We are a multi-national, multi-lingual group who subscribe to a range of feminist perspectives. This has both enriched our work and challenged us to think and re-think our collective and individual theoretical understandings of militarism, militarization, military occupation, and armed conflict. Most significant has been examining our relationships to each other while we struggle to resist US militarism and its impacts. Through the decade of our existence, we have faced and addressed, in a variety of ways, issues related to the following questions:

• What does it mean to work across, and in spite of, the asymmetrical structural power relations among us? These include intra-regional inequalities such as among Japanese, Korean and Filipino members, as well as interregional disparities between the US and all other country members.

• How do we address the contradictions and tensions raised by the nature
of these relationships?

• How do we deal with linguistic differences, related to class, ethnicity, culture, so we can communicate effectively as we discuss issues that are intellectual and emotional, and sometimes traumatic?

• What are our collective responsibilities for our respective country’s polices and practices that have impacted others in our Network? This is especially true for US and Japanese participants, whose countries have heavily shaped geopolitical relations historically and contemporarily.

• What do we actually mean by “transnational feminist praxis”?

Key Lessons Learned

We have learned many common-sense and profound lessons during our ten years together. Perhaps the most important is working multilingually. At the first meeting in 1997, we recognized the need for more adequate interpretation and translation among English, Japanese, Korean and Tagalog. This difficulty, and the tensions it generated, still persist. A group of volunteer translators have created a Feminist Activist Dictionary to be used by our interpreters and members, so that we can share common meanings and definitions of words that often cannot be translated directly from one language to another. These include terms such as rape and gender in English, han in Korean, and giri in Japanese. We realise that interpretation and translation take time. Talks and presentations should be finished before a meeting so translators can work on them, for example. Also, we must schedule meeting sessions to allow for interpretation, and identify women who are willing to act as interpreters. As we are not able to pay them for their time, we greatly appreciate the significant, and essential, contribution they make to our work.

One of the most profound lessons deals with privilege and access to resources – both assumed and real-based on race/ethnicity, class, nation, history, and language. One way this has manifested is in relation to money and funding, for example. Sometimes, women outside the US have assumed that US-based women and, to a lesser extent, Japanese women, have easy access to financial resources. Relative to poorer countries, this may be true, but it has not been easy for women living in the US to secure funding for the Network. The nature of work – opposing US military and economic policies and working outside the US – makes it difficult to secure sustained funding from most donors. Occasionally, we have been fortunate enough to secure grants from groups such as the Global Fund for Women. Another problem has been the assumption, by those outside the United States, that US women are a monolithic group. In reality, the US is characterized by serious inequalities based on region, language, race, class, and immigration status. As women living in the US, we have sought to raise awareness about these issues during international Network meetings, including trying to ensure adequate representation of a range of US participants.

Our Vision and Mission

We envision a world of genuine security based on justice, respect for others across national boundaries, and economic planning based on local people’s needs, especially the needs of women and children. Our shared mission is to build and sustain a network of women to promote, model, and protect genuine security in the face of militarism.

Our goals

• To contribute to the creation of societies free of militarism, violence, and all forms of sexual exploitation in order to guarantee the rights of marginalized people, particularly women and children, and to ensure the safety, well-being, and long-term sustainability of all our communities.

• To strengthen our common consciousness and voice by sharing experiences and making connections among militarism, imperialism, and systems of oppression and exploitation based on gender, race, class and nation.

What is Genuine Security?

Security is often thought of as “national security” or “military security”. We believe that militarism undermines everyday security for many people and for the environment. Following the United Nations Development Program report of 1994, we argue that genuine security arises from the following principles:

1. The physical environment must be able to sustain human and natural life;

2. People’s basic needs for food, clothing, shelter, health care, and education must be guaranteed;

3. People’s fundamental human dignity should be honored and cultural identities respected;

4. People and the natural environment should be protected from avoidable harm.

Working for genuine security means:

• Valuing people and having confidence in their potential to live in life-affirming ways;

• Building a strong personal core that enables us to work with “others” across lines of significant difference through honest and open dialogue;

• Respecting differences based on gender, race, and culture, rather than using these attributes to objectify “others” as inferior;

• Relying on spiritual values to make connections with others;

• Creating relationships of care so that children and young people feel needed and gain respect for themselves and each other through meaningful participation in community projects, decision-making, and work;

• Redefining manhood to include nurturing and caring for others. Men’s sense of wellbeing, pride, belonging, competence, and security should come from activities and institutions that are life affirming;

• Valuing cooperation over competition;

• Eliminating gross inequalities of wealth between nations and between people within nations;

• Eliminating oppressions based on gender, race, class, heterosexuality, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, able body-ism, and other significant differences;

• Building genuine democracy – locally, nationally, regionally, and internationally – with local control of resources and appropriate education to participate fully in decision-making processes;

• Valuing the complex ecological web that sustains human beings and of which we are all a part;

• Ending all forms of colonialism and occupation.

Issues

In our diverse communities we are working on: military violence against women/trafficking, problems arising from the expansion of US military operations, health effects of environmental contamination by preparations for war, and the everyday militarization of all our societies. In the US, low-income communities face aggressive military recruiting and inadequate services due to inflated military budgets at the expense of socially-useful programs. Part of our work is to redefine security, as described above, especially for women, children, and the environment.

Alongside our anti-military critiques, we are working on creating sustainable communities and putting forth our visions of alternatives, sustainable ways to live.

Network Activities vary from country to country and include the provision of services and support to victims/survivors, public education and protest, research, lobbying, litigation, promoting alternative economic development, and networking.

We seek to:

• promote solidarity and healing among the diversity of women affected by militarism and violence;

• integrate our common understandings into our relationships in the Network and in our daily lives;

• promote leadership and self-determination among all the sisters of the Network;

• initiate and support local and international efforts against militarism;

• strengthen our work by exploring our diverse historical, social, political, and economic experiences in each nation/country.

Together, we address the challenge of how to link these separate efforts, each focusing on small parts of the military system. We do it in the following ways:

• International meetings

• Facilitating links among country groups

• Coordinated activities

• Supporting each others’ individual activities and campaigns through letters, donations, selling goods

• Educating people in our communities about how US militarism impacts women, children, and the environment in other countries of the Network

• Writing, talks and presentations

Network participants have organised 6 international meetings in:

Okinawa (1997 and 2000)

South Korea (2002)

Philippines (2004)

United States (1998 and 2007)

These meetings include site visits to US bases and women’s projects, public sessions to share information and perspectives, internal discussions of the issues women are working on in each nation, art-related and cultural activity, and media work.

Network members have also participated in other international efforts:

Hague Appeal for Peace (1999)

Grassroots Summit for Bases Cleanup (1999)

World Social Forum (2004)

Our expertise

• Knowledge. We know how US militarism impacts communities in the Asia/Pacific region and the Caribbean as well as in the United States.

• Analysis. We see important connections and continuities between US domestic and foreign policy that link communities impacted by military decisions, budgets, and operations in the US and abroad. We use the lenses of gender, race, class and nation to analyze the issues.

• Solidarity. Our Network comprises veteran organizers and relative newcomers. We have sustained this Network for 10 years across geographical distances, differences of language and culture, and complex histories among our nations.

• Languages. At the Network level we decided not to work only in English. This would limit participation to women with college education, whereas many activists who are doing cutting edge work are not fluent in English. Currently, the Network works in 5 languages: English, Japanese, Korean, Spanish and Pilipino. We have dedicated interpreters/translators who facilitate clear communication. They have compiled a dictionary of over 400 terms that need precise, systematic translation.

• Organizing and Leadership Development. The country groups all involve skilled and experienced organizers working in their communities on these issues. The international meetings have been extremely effective in supporting this local organizing and creating opportunities for younger activists to develop leadership skills and experience.

• Public education. Many Network participants give talks and workshops, and publish popular articles, op ed pieces, and more scholarly papers.

• Art and social change. Network participants include visual artists, poets, writers, dancers, and performers. We see a crucial connection between the arts and action for social change.

Future growth involves:

• Better communication among our country groups;

• Deeper understanding of the issues and how to address them;

• More country-country connections and activities;

• More Network-wide activities;

• Expanding the Network by adding more country groups and linking with other women’s anti-military networks;

• Being able to support a Network secretariat, possibly with paid staff time.

International partners include women active with:

Asia Peace Alliance, Tokyo.

Japan Coalition on the US Military Bases, Yufuin, Oita.

Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, Naha, Okinawa.

Du Rae Bang (My Sister’s Place), Uijongbu, South Korea.

National Campaign to Eradicate Crime by US Troops in Korea, Seoul.

SAFE Korea, Seoul.

BUKLOD Center, Olongapo City, Philippines.

Philippines Women’s Network for Peace and Security, Manila.

WEDPRO (Women’s Education, Development, Productivity and Research

Organization) Quezon City, Philippines.

Institute for Latino Empowerment, Caguas, Puerto Rico.

Alianza de Mujeres Viequenses, Vieques, Puerto Rico.

DMZ-Aloha A’ina, Hawaii.

Nasion Chamoru, Guam

Women for Genuine Security is the US-based Network group with members in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Seattle. US partners include women active with Bay Area groups: AFSC, babae, FACES, KAWAN, PANA Institute, Women of Color Resource Center, and Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom.

We are among the Network founders and have several distinct roles within it:

• Transnational collaborative work with women outside the United States – e.g. educating US audiences about the US military presence in the Asia-Pacific region and the Caribbean, and writing letters to officials (in the US and outside) in support of local activism in Network nations.

• Working with US groups concerning the effects of militarism in the United States and bringing this perspective to the international Network.

• Fundraising to support travel and accommodation at international meetings for women from poorer countries.

• Providing informal co-ordination for the Network.

As women living in the United States, our model of transnational organizing means taking into account the unequal power relationships between the US and the countries where US bases are located. Taking our national privilege seriously, we strive to create working relationships that are equal, mutually respectful and democratic, between women across nations. We seek to avoid recreating the same power hierarchy among us as exists between our nations.

We want to work with women who are doing grassroots organizing, which means that translation and interpretation are key components of our work. This international network includes strong friendships that have been sustained for over a decade. We believe that working together is possible despite language difference, cultural differences, and geographic distance because we have forged strong personal relationships, not just based on the issues we care about, but by really hearing and sharing each others’ passions, life stories, and commitments.

Our international meetings last from 4-7 days to allow time for translation, and the cultural sharing that grounds our relationships and commitments to one another’s struggles and to our work together. We also build our connections through country-to-country exchanges of women activists visiting each other for consultation, study, speaking tours, research, and shared inspiration.

For more details see www.genuinesecurity.org

This website started out with a focus on Women for Genuine Security. We plan to expand it to become more international in scope.

Air Force won't fly low over Big Isle

Post Date April 26, 2008

Comments 0 Comments

Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category 'A'ole Stryker, Social and Economic Impacts

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2008/Apr/26/ln/hawaii804260329.html

Posted on: Saturday, April 26, 2008

Air Force won’t fly low over Big Isle

Advertiser Staff

The Air Force has dropped a plan to establish a low-altitude flight path over the Big Island as a training route for C-17 cargo transport planes, U.S. Rep. Mazie K. Hirono said yesterday.

The decision came after Big Island residents raised concerns about noise, pollution and safety, as well as possible effects on area livestock, Hirono said in a news release.

The Air Force said it wanted to fly as low as 300 feet over unpopulated areas of the Big Island, and at 2,000 feet over populated areas.

“I am pleased and impressed that the Air Force took the concerns of the community to heart, and acted so expeditiously to address this situation,” Hirono, D-Hawai’i, said. “They should be commended for their work on this matter.”

Hirono said the proposed training route would have taken C-17 jets over the communities of Honoka’a and Waimea, as well as other populated areas.

Hirono said the decision came after Monday’s meeting of the Hawai’i County Council, where dozens of Big Island residents offered public testimony.

After evaluating the community input, Air Force commanders determined they will be able to satisfy their low-altitude training needs without using the proposed training route over the Big Island, Hirono said.

Hickam Air Force Base spokes-man Phil Breeze said the routing had not been finalized. Low-altitude terrain flying will continue during flights to Alaska, he said.

Col. Andy Hockman, the 15th Operations Group commander at Hickam Air Force Base, recently said, “Flying low and using mountains and ridgelines to keep us away from the threat is one of the tactics that we use in this (the C-17) aircraft, and we practice it everywhere except in Hawai’i.”

The flying corridor would have been four to seven miles wide and about 70 miles long, the Air Force said.

By year’s end, eight of the C-17 Globemaster transports will be based at Hickam. The $200 million jet is the U.S. military’s newest large-capacity transport, with the ability to carry 102 soldiers or three Stryker combat vehicles.

Abolishing the bases of war: AFSC works to eliminate foreign U.S. military bases

Post Date May 17, 2007

Comments 0 Comments

Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category American Empire, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Environmental Impacts, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, Social and Economic Impacts, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands), World

The following article was published in the AFSC newsletter in 2007 following the inaugural conference of the International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases in Quito, Ecuador.

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Abolishing the bases of war

AFSC works to eliminate foreign U.S. military bases

By KYLE KAJIHIRO

Little known to most Americans is the vast scope of the United States’ network of military bases world wide — more than 2,600 bases in the United States and its territories, some 730 foreign bases, and nearly 100 temporary bases.

These bases not only make it possible for the United States to wage wars, but also increase the likelihood that the country will go to war rather than pursue nonviolent strategies to resolve conflicts. Because of their impact on local communities, military bases have sparked widespread protest.

International Women’s Day rally during the military bases conference in Ecuador.

Hawai’i is a case in point. The U.S. military in Hawai’i has displaced entire communities and generations of families from their ancestral lands and accelerated the influx of foreign settlers, impeding Hawaiians’ efforts at self-determination. It has destroyed ecosystems and sacred places, and endangered community health with widespread military contamination. It also has exacerbated violence, crime, accidents, and had a negative impact on other aspects of Hawaiian society, economics, and culture. In response, the AFSC Hawai’i Area Program has made demilitarization a priority of our peace building work for more than thirty years. In 1976, AFSC staff participated in the first boatload of protestors to land on the Hawaiian sacred island of Kaho‘olawe in the successful campaign to stop the Navy bombing.

AFSC-Hawai’i continues to work with communities struggling to stop military expansion and promote the clean up and return of lands in Makua, Pohakuloa, Wahiawa, Nohili, and other sites.

Elsewhere, AFSC programs have had a similarly positive impact on demilitarization efforts.

In the Philippines, the AFSC supported the “People Power” movement that ended the violent Marcos dictatorship and ousted U.S. bases from their country. In Puerto Rico, the AFSC supported the successful campaigns to end the military bombing of Culebra in 1975, and Vieques in 2003. AFSC programs also stood in solidarity with anti-bases movements in Okinawa, Guam, Korea, the Marshall Islands, and Japan.

AFSC’s efforts to eliminate foreign U.S. military bases reached a new apex this past March when an AFSC delegation participated in the International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases in Quito, Ecuador. There, AFSC staff joined more than four hundred grassroots peace and justice activists from forty countries. It was the largest meeting ever of grassroots leaders of the anti-military bases movement.

Participants shared stories about their struggles, forged relationships of mutual solidarity, took to the streets to protest the U.S. base in Manta, Ecuador, and, most importantly, launched a global network for the abolition of foreign military bases.

Demonstration against U.S. military
expansion in Hawai’i.

The conference proclaimed a powerful, shared vision of a world free from what renowned scholar and author Chalmers Johnson has dubbed “The Empire of Bases.” It also helped create strategic alliances among movements.

AFSC’s leadership and support contributed to the success of this historic gathering.

Through its Ecuador office, AFSC supported and contributed to the efforts of the conference’s organizing committee to hold the gathering in Ecuador. AFSC’s experience in the region has taught us the connections between human rights conditions of communities subjected to toxic fumigation, chronic violence along the border between Colombia and Ecuador, and the U.S. base in Manta.

A delegation from the conference met with Ecuador’s newly elected president, Rafael Correa, who expressed his thanks and reiterated his commitment to end the agreement allowing U.S. military use of the Manta base. Unfortunately, this would not prevent the U.S. from establishing a base elsewhere in the region.

While the conference marked an important milestone in the global anti-bases movement, it is just part of a continuing process of awakening, convergence, and movement building that will be an enduring gift from Ecuador, the “Middle of the World.”

Kyle Kajihiro is the director of AFSC’s Hawai’i Area Program.

For more information on AFSC’s work on military bases log onto www.afsc.org/no-bases. Also go to www.abolishbases.org for information about the International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases.

By the numbers

Number of foreign military bases: 1,000+
(from the U.S., Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and Italy)
Note: These do not include secret military bases, like the four operated by the U.S. in Iraq.

Number of U.S. foreign military bases: 737 (officially)
Many estimate the true number to be more than 1,000

Number of U.S. soldiers deployed overseas: 2.5 million+

Number of U.S. soldiers in Iraq: 133,000 (as of March 2006)

For more information, see AFSC’s “10 Reasons Why U.S. Military Bases Must Go” at www.afsc.org/no-bases/
ten-reasons.pdf

A history of aggression

In January 1893, U.S. troops invaded and overthrew the government of the sovereign Kingdom of Hawai’i to secure access to a military port at Keawalau o Pu‘uloa—the original name for Pearl Harbor. This illegal act of war, for which the U.S. formally apologized in 1993, violated numerous treaties and international laws and is the fundamental source of conflict between the Hawaiian pro-independence and human rights movement and the U.S. government.

With the outbreak of war with Spain in 1898, the United States occupied Hawai’i and expanded its military bases there—bases that have been subsequently used in every major U.S. war.

Today, the Gatling guns that once were aimed at the ‘Iolani Palace have evolved into the complex of bases, troops, weapons systems, and infrastructure that comprise the Pacific Command, the oldest and largest of the unified military commands.